Al Might Have Been Homeless
Photo: ABC
All of the signs of Al’s homelessness were obvious from the onset: he always wore the same shirt, grew out his beard for warmth, and jumped at the chance to enter a relationship with someone, no matter how demeaning she was towards him, all so he could sleep in a warm bed before returning to the warm lights of the television studio.
If only Tim and Jill had paid attention to their friend’s plight.
Tim And Jill Seem To Hate Each Other
Photo: ABC
Tim and Jill seem to dislike each other, and it’s possible that disdain curdled into full-blown hatred at some point. Tim’s frustrations boil over in every episode; one time, he even destroys a piece of their furniture to work out his personal demons – a textbook sign of something worse happening in the home.
And the series doesn’t shy away from showing Tim and Jill arguing over his lack of desire to go to the opera or complete their will.
Tim Has A Death Wish
Photo: ABC
Tim Taylor always seems destined for a gruesome death caused by one of his crazy contraptions. His character is presented as being accident prone, but people aren’t made the host of long-running, popular home improvement programs if they’re that clumsy. It seems clear that Tim has some sort of death wish.
What better way for the tool man to pass beyond this mortal coil than being destroyed by one of his own machines?
Tim Has Toxic Disdain For His Wife And Children
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Even if you’ve only seen a handful of episodes of Home Improvement, you’re aware of the disgust that Tim Taylor feels towards his family. All he wants to do is work on his hot rod and be applauded on his show. But day in and day out, he’s forced to pretend to care about the issues his family faces.
Jill, his wife, constantly asserts her independence: first, she leaves the house to continue her education, then she begins to work for a magazine, which puts her in direct competition with Tim’s identity as the media personality in the home. And out of his three children, none of them have ever shown interest in their father’s world. Even Brad, the sporty son, fails to show any enthusiasm for tools.
Maybe their lack of interest in fawning over Tim drives him to his attempts to control every appliance and machine around him.
The Beach Boys Made Wilson A Recluse
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In the Season 6 episode “The Karate Kid Returns,” it’s revealed that Wilson (whose full name is Wilson W. Wilson Jr.) is related to the Wilsons from The Beach Boys. The Wilson family was notoriously contentious, and their constant in-fighting drove songwriter Brian Wilson to become a recluse living in a recording studio/sandbox.
Could the same thing have happened to Home Improvement‘s Wilson? Was his home a wasteland of unused recordings about his love of the 405 highway and the endless summer? Was he driven to the freezing plains of Michigan out of the betrayal he felt every time he set eyes on the sunny beaches of Southern California?
Tim’s Fear Of Death Is Tied To His Unfinished Hot Rod
Photo: ABC
Tim’s garage is a place of constant construction. His hot rod sits uncompleted for much of the series, either due to his inability to finish anything important that he starts or because he feels his hot rod is his final project. What does a man have left to do once he proves his worth as the host of a regional home improvement show and has three children?
Tim has tasted success and ensured his legacy, so all that’s left is his hot rod and the great beyond.
Brad And Randy Tormented Mark
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As the youngest child, Mark lives under the intense scrutiny of his older brothers, Brad and Randy, and they seem especially out to get him. In each episode of the early series, the boys ruthlessly taunt their youngest sibling, insisting he was meant to be born a girl, that Santa Claus died before he was born, and that he was adopted after his birth parents disposed of him.
They could be the reason that Mark eventually becames a goth.
Wilson Slowly Drives Tim Insane
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Wilson is the great unknown of Home Improvement. But is he real? If so, then why does he so rarely leave his home? And why does Tim implicitly trust him? It seems that, at some point, Wilson endeared himself to Tim, which established an unhealthy relationship between the neighbors.
Tim can’t go about his normal life without consulting his mysterious friend, and Wilson controls his neighbor’s every movement with a few vaguely poetic words.
Tim Emotionally Abuses His Sons
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Throughout the series, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor pits his sons against one another to determine which is the rightful heir to the tool throne. While it would initially seem that Tim prefers his more aggressive children, Brad and Randy, over the quieter Mark, Tim pushes them all to excel in every pursuit, from sports to theater.
In “Overactive Glance,” Randy has trouble playing football, so Tim twists his son’s arm until the boy puts super glue on his hands to gain better traction. Then in “Groin Pains,” Tim builds a flying apparatus for Randy, who has been cast in the lead of his school’s production of Peter Pan, so he’ll literally be elevated above the other students and his brothers.
Tim Gaslights Jill
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Tim’s frightening tendency to gaslight Jill is most on display in the Season 2 episode “Stereo-Typical,” in which Tim purchases an entirely new stereo system after he promises Jill that he’ll only be buying a pair of speakers. When she reminds him that a new system isn’t what they agreed on, he insists the purchase was actually made for her, and that it would be crazy to not want an entirely new and expensive stereo system.
All of this is done in front of their three sons, no doubt teaching them the wrong lessons about relationships.
Tim Mercilessly Bullies Al
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Al, Tim’s right-hand man, was the focal point of derision and contempt for fans of Home Improvement. Even though he appeared as threatening as a lumberjack teddy bear, his constant cowering to Tim Taylor’s bullying made it all too easy to side with the maniacal host of Tool Time.
By the time the third season rolled around, Al was the clear punching bag of the show.
Mark Might Have Had An Existential Crisis
Photo: ABC
When the penultimate season of Home Improvement premiered in 1997, the biggest change was youngest son Mark’s appearance. He had gone from a sweet, Hanson look-a-like to a mall goth over the summer. This was a source of easy comedy for the writer, but Mark’s turn towards the dark side was also a signal that the show was close to its end.
Was Mark able to see through the fourth wall and know the show was at its end?
Tim Has An Unquenchable Thirst For Power
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Tim Taylor, despite being the host of a successful regional home repair program, never seems to have enough power. His work, home life, and personal time are all spent on a never-ending quest for this one desire.
Never content with his already accomplished life, Tim consistently straps jet engines to lawn mowers, over-polishes dance floors, and remains in a Christmas decoration cold war with his unseen neighbor, Doc Johnson – who might as well exist in Tim’s depraved imagination.
Tim Longs To Return To An Animalistic State
Photo: ABC
Tim Taylor employs many catchphrases during his tenure as the “Tool Man” on Home Improvement, but nothing caught on quite like his distinctive guttural bark. Maybe this sound signified his desire to return to his animalistic state and bay in the moonlight, reveling in a kill performed with a new Binford circular saw set.
